Battle of Gibeolpo

The Silla navy under Sachan Sideuk defeated Xue Rengui’s Tang fleet at Gibeolpo on the Geum estuary, the last major battle of the war.

Beaten at Maeso, Tang came again by sea. In the eleventh month of 676 Xue Rengui’s fleet entered Gibeolpo at the mouth of the Geum, and the Silla navy under Sachan Sideuk met it. Silla lost the first clash but, according to the Samguk sagi, then won twenty-two battles large and small and took more than 4,000 heads.

Gibeolpo was where Su Dingfang’s army had landed to attack Baekje in 660. After this battle Tang withdrew from the peninsula; earlier that year, in the second month, it had already moved the Protectorate General to Pacify the East from Pyongyang to Liaodong.

Silla now held the land south of a line from the Taedong River to Wonsan Bay, completing the unification of the Three Kingdoms — and it had driven out Tang by its own strength.